Jialong Food A (2495) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jialong Food A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jialong Food A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jialong Food A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jialong Food A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jialong Food A operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Jialong Food A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jialong Food A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jialong Food A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jialong Food A
Strengths of Jialong Food A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jialong Food A are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Jialong Food A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jialong Food A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jialong Food A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Jialong Food A comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
High brand equity
– Jialong Food A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jialong Food A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jialong Food A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jialong Food A staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Jialong Food A is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Jialong Food A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jialong Food A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Jialong Food A is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– Jialong Food A is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jialong Food A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Jialong Food A has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jialong Food A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jialong Food A has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Jialong Food A in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Jialong Food A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jialong Food A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jialong Food A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jialong Food A has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Weaknesses of Jialong Food A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jialong Food A are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Jialong Food A has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Jialong Food A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Jialong Food A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jialong Food A is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Jialong Food A, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jialong Food A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Jialong Food A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Jialong Food A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Jialong Food A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jialong Food A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Jialong Food A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jialong Food A to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jialong Food A products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jialong Food A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Jialong Food A has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Jialong Food A has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Jialong Food A should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jialong Food A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Jialong Food A even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Employees’ less understanding of Jialong Food A strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Jialong Food A don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Jialong Food A is just above the Food Processing industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Jialong Food A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jialong Food A are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Jialong Food A can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Jialong Food A can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jialong Food A can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jialong Food A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Jialong Food A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jialong Food A products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Jialong Food A to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Jialong Food A can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Jialong Food A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jialong Food A can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Jialong Food A can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jialong Food A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jialong Food A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Jialong Food A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jialong Food A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Jialong Food A has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jialong Food A can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Food Processing industry.
Threats Jialong Food A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jialong Food A are -
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jialong Food A can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Jialong Food A prominent markets.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Jialong Food A.
Environmental challenges
– Jialong Food A needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Jialong Food A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Jialong Food A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jialong Food A in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jialong Food A can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Food Processing industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jialong Food A is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Jialong Food A needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Food Processing industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jialong Food A may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Jialong Food A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jialong Food A high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Increasing wage structure of Jialong Food A
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Jialong Food A.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jialong Food A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jialong Food A needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Jialong Food A is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Jialong Food A is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Jialong Food A to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Jialong Food A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
